Talk:moment of force

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Latest comment: 16 years ago by Dbfirs
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Isn't this tautologistic, the meaning is all in moment. Conrad.Irwin 23:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I created the entry because it was a red link, and I thought exactly along the lines of Conrad's objection. There can be no moment without a force, though often a force will not have a moment about a given axis. However, because the term "moment" has so many other meanings, and "moment of inertia" is a related concept, it is common to use the slightly tautological "moment of force" to stress the intended interpretation (759 hits in Google Books plus another 1300 for plural forms making over 2000 in total; and 161,000 hits in general Google). English has many, many tautological expressions designed for emphasis. Dbfirs 08:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
By the way (no offence intended to Conrad), should we have an entry for "tautologistic". It gets only 23 Google hits, and only 5 in Google Books! Dbfirs 08:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply